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Multiple Travel Powers - From Bug to Feature
rokurocaris
Posts: 1,074 Arc User
Many of us remember the multiple travel powers bug as one of the best things that ever happened in this game, and we were not happy when it got fixed instead of more annoying bugs, which are still around to this day.
But the devs had a point there: It was a bug after all, and by that unstable.
But ever since the introduction of Ao'qephoth, we all know that our devs are not shy to turn bugs into features. If only they would do it to pleasant results for once...
Which brings us to my suggestion: A way to use multiple travel powers, in stable combinations.
The bug essentially combined all active travel powers in a random way, leading to things like high-speed air-tunneling that just looked wrong.
The solution could be assigning priorities to travel powers. The one with the highest priority is the one you see in use, while the lower one becomes basically an upgrade for it.
Here is a chart that should help preventing complications:
12 - Tunneling
Tunneling powers really need a special status. They may be ground-bound, but also make the using character invisible. Only speed buffs from other travel powers may be applied! Transformations and objects to surf on are pointless underground. Flight mechanics, jumping buffs, as well as teleport and swing actions, need to be canceled out altogether.
11 - Teleports
Teleports are activated by clicking and have no toggle effect, so they should not interfere with transforming or other flights. A character flies, phases out, keeps flying invisibly, phases back in, and then continues flying normally.
However, swinging during a Teleport could be problematic, so the teleport action needs to cancel out the swing action.
10 - Transforming Flights
Skull Flight, Vampire Flight and Scarab Flight turn the character into an object, making the objects from Surfing powers pointless. Therefore, their animation should cancel those out. These forms have no arms either, so it would make sense transforming flights to cancel out swinging.
9 - Swing action
While the Swinging power toggles by themselves have a low priority, the actual swinging action needs a high one. It would basically allow a player to stop in mid-flight, pull out the grappling hook, do a swing action and then immediately continue flying.
8 - Surfing Flight
Hover Disk and Earth flight spawn an object for the character to stand on and grant true flight. Therefore, they need a higher priority than regular Flights.
7 - Non-Flight Surfing
Energy Slide and Ice Slide are this kind of travel power. Like surfing Flights, they spawn an object for the character to ride, which would be incompatible with any running, jumping or rolling movement animation. Therefore, non-flight surfing needs to cancel those out. But while Flight (and even more so; gliding) cancels out the mechanics of these still ground-bound travel powers, their animations should have a higher priority. So activating both a non-flight surfing power and a flight power effectively results in a surfing flight travel power.
6 - Gliding
Gliding comes with automatic, permanent forward movement. To keep this, it needs to cancel out the regular Flights' mechanics. Their speed should be cumulative though.
5 - Flights
Flight powers change the character's movements radically. To prevent airwalking glitches, they need to cancel out the animations of ground-bound travel powers. Jump buffs have no effect during flight, after all, while speed buffs should still be applied.
4 - Rolling
Rolling powers change the animation in a way that is incompatible with certain other movements. Their jumping height and speed buffs should be compatible with those of of running and jumping powers, but their movement animations should be canceled out and thereby replaced by those of the rolling power.
3 - Running
Superspeed and the like change the running animation, They need priority over, for example, Swinging, so the character doesn't run around at high speed with a normal jogging animation. Multiple speed buffs should be cumulative.
2 - Jumping
Superjump, Rocket Jump and Acrobatics affect only the jumping height and animation, while sharing the running animation with Running powers or normal walking. Therefore, only their jumping buff and animation applies when a faster Running power is applied. The running speed of Acrobatics and Superspeeds should be cumulative, but the later's running animation should have the higher priority.
1 - Swinging
Like Teleportation, Swinging is activated by clicking. Unlike Teleports though, it has a permanent jumping buff, activated by toggling the travel power.
The actual swing action is a should have a higher priority though.
When travel powers are combined, both their auras are applied.
When two transforming or surfing powers are combined, only the form/object of the later activated power is applied.
If done correctly, this should make for a solid system that allows players to use two (or more, if it's made compatible with devices - NOT vehicles though, of course) travel powers as one. Of course, people wouldn't have to use both their travel powers at once. They an still activate only one, if they want to.
Not only would this bring a lot of fun to the players, but also allow a character with certain travel powers to keep up with the speed of a vehicle.
But now for the (literal) 30 Dollar question: What would Cryptic and PWE get from this?
First of all; higher travel power sales. People would buy more travel powers in order to get all the cool and useful combinations they could create with this feature.
Multiple travel powers could also be made available only for Gold players, further encouraging subscriptions (i.e. repeated transactions). After all, they are not necessary to play the game, but a nice bonus feature, just like customizable power colors.
But the devs had a point there: It was a bug after all, and by that unstable.
But ever since the introduction of Ao'qephoth, we all know that our devs are not shy to turn bugs into features. If only they would do it to pleasant results for once...
Which brings us to my suggestion: A way to use multiple travel powers, in stable combinations.
The bug essentially combined all active travel powers in a random way, leading to things like high-speed air-tunneling that just looked wrong.
The solution could be assigning priorities to travel powers. The one with the highest priority is the one you see in use, while the lower one becomes basically an upgrade for it.
Here is a chart that should help preventing complications:
12 - Tunneling
Tunneling powers really need a special status. They may be ground-bound, but also make the using character invisible. Only speed buffs from other travel powers may be applied! Transformations and objects to surf on are pointless underground. Flight mechanics, jumping buffs, as well as teleport and swing actions, need to be canceled out altogether.
11 - Teleports
Teleports are activated by clicking and have no toggle effect, so they should not interfere with transforming or other flights. A character flies, phases out, keeps flying invisibly, phases back in, and then continues flying normally.
However, swinging during a Teleport could be problematic, so the teleport action needs to cancel out the swing action.
10 - Transforming Flights
Skull Flight, Vampire Flight and Scarab Flight turn the character into an object, making the objects from Surfing powers pointless. Therefore, their animation should cancel those out. These forms have no arms either, so it would make sense transforming flights to cancel out swinging.
9 - Swing action
While the Swinging power toggles by themselves have a low priority, the actual swinging action needs a high one. It would basically allow a player to stop in mid-flight, pull out the grappling hook, do a swing action and then immediately continue flying.
8 - Surfing Flight
Hover Disk and Earth flight spawn an object for the character to stand on and grant true flight. Therefore, they need a higher priority than regular Flights.
7 - Non-Flight Surfing
Energy Slide and Ice Slide are this kind of travel power. Like surfing Flights, they spawn an object for the character to ride, which would be incompatible with any running, jumping or rolling movement animation. Therefore, non-flight surfing needs to cancel those out. But while Flight (and even more so; gliding) cancels out the mechanics of these still ground-bound travel powers, their animations should have a higher priority. So activating both a non-flight surfing power and a flight power effectively results in a surfing flight travel power.
6 - Gliding
Gliding comes with automatic, permanent forward movement. To keep this, it needs to cancel out the regular Flights' mechanics. Their speed should be cumulative though.
5 - Flights
Flight powers change the character's movements radically. To prevent airwalking glitches, they need to cancel out the animations of ground-bound travel powers. Jump buffs have no effect during flight, after all, while speed buffs should still be applied.
4 - Rolling
Rolling powers change the animation in a way that is incompatible with certain other movements. Their jumping height and speed buffs should be compatible with those of of running and jumping powers, but their movement animations should be canceled out and thereby replaced by those of the rolling power.
3 - Running
Superspeed and the like change the running animation, They need priority over, for example, Swinging, so the character doesn't run around at high speed with a normal jogging animation. Multiple speed buffs should be cumulative.
2 - Jumping
Superjump, Rocket Jump and Acrobatics affect only the jumping height and animation, while sharing the running animation with Running powers or normal walking. Therefore, only their jumping buff and animation applies when a faster Running power is applied. The running speed of Acrobatics and Superspeeds should be cumulative, but the later's running animation should have the higher priority.
1 - Swinging
Like Teleportation, Swinging is activated by clicking. Unlike Teleports though, it has a permanent jumping buff, activated by toggling the travel power.
The actual swing action is a should have a higher priority though.
When travel powers are combined, both their auras are applied.
When two transforming or surfing powers are combined, only the form/object of the later activated power is applied.
If done correctly, this should make for a solid system that allows players to use two (or more, if it's made compatible with devices - NOT vehicles though, of course) travel powers as one. Of course, people wouldn't have to use both their travel powers at once. They an still activate only one, if they want to.
Not only would this bring a lot of fun to the players, but also allow a character with certain travel powers to keep up with the speed of a vehicle.
But now for the (literal) 30 Dollar question: What would Cryptic and PWE get from this?
First of all; higher travel power sales. People would buy more travel powers in order to get all the cool and useful combinations they could create with this feature.
Multiple travel powers could also be made available only for Gold players, further encouraging subscriptions (i.e. repeated transactions). After all, they are not necessary to play the game, but a nice bonus feature, just like customizable power colors.
Post edited by rokurocaris on
0
Comments
I want Rainbow Aerobatics!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
...the ultimate Contrast Moe (or not).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks9_8-VBB0k :biggrin:
Oh my. That's glorious. I want this.
Also I agree with OP. That sad it would be nice if they included sky-walking as a travel power. I come across this sometimes due to a bug and it always seems cool, especially when leaving flame trails in the sky.
Oh that is freaking awesome. I didn't get to play around with it much, but I did get some slick Distorted Heroic Flight and Distortion Dark Speed effects.
I agree with ya 100% on this one, Roku. Was an excellent "feature", which they should've just kept around and tweaked to make it stable.
/Signed
I also agree we need to make sure certain choices can only combine with others, preferably in my opinion done in phases on the PTS, where every now and then a new combo is tested for aesthetics and quality, then via a forum poll or something it gets added to the core game?
Oh, and I suspect we don't want it as fast as that video: looks like the game had difficulty keeping up to render the terrain on occasion.
Oh .. but i forgot .. Vehicles .. they are like a TP combined with a Costume :rolleyes:
Fifteen to one-hundred dollar single piece costume sets.
Here's the thing. The bug really did 2 different things. First of all, it created a funky combination graphic. Secondly it allowed advantages from one tp to work when a different tp was active.
While I think the first was interesting, it was the second function that really caught my attention.
One thing that I think would sell is a purchaseable device that activated certain tp advantages--swinging's flippin, jump's knock resistance, acrobatics speed bonus, and the aforementioned earthen embrace, whether or not tps were active. Honestly, virtually all of my characters with swinging have taken it exclusively for the flippin advantage.
As for the graphics: Sphere rolling with flight? Why not?
Nope. As you can see, Tunneling has the highest priority. That means it cancels out all other movement types and animations.
Devices that give you the buff of certain advantages you don't even have the base power for? That doesn't seem right...
True. But to get that without complications, it would take a flight power that comes with the rolling animation. No problem to make that, in theory.
Aahhh! Why is this not working!?
I want this, moar travel powers and sparkles!!
=^ _ ^= Kitty Lives!